by R. K. Ryals
“You’re good, Dayton,” he whispered.
“You are, too, Marcas.”
Our heads fell against the wall of light. The world rained fire around us.
For a long time we simple sat there staring at the flames.
I was the first to move, my gaze sliding up to meet his. It was then, for the first time since I’d met Marcas years before that I saw him cry.
My hand pressed against the barrier just over his face. I wanted to touch the tears, to wipe them away.
“Marcas,” I breathed.
He slumped against the shield.
It was then I realized that devils could cry, too. That the only reason they never do is because crying could get them killed. To be so old, to have lived so long, and to have never cried. He deserved a lifetime of tears. He deserved a lifetime of peace.
“I can save the children of Cain,” Marcas said suddenly, his shoulders heaving.
I stared, shocked. “What?”
His gaze moved up to meet mine. “I can save the children of Cain.”
“How?” I asked.
Marcas didn’t answer, his head falling. “Tell me again what you told me in the past. After you pulled the dagger out of my chest.”
We’d done this before, but for some reason, he kept needing to hear it, as if it was helping him somehow. I didn’t hesitate. “Heaven is where ever you are.”
He smiled. “I’m going to make it all right, Dayton. I’m going to make all of this right.”
Something cold and uneasy settled in the pit of my stomach.
“Marcas,” I whispered.
He didn’t look at me again. Behind him, the rain of fire ceased.
Across the yard, Luther Craig stood slowly, his hands pulling Monroe up after him. In front of us, a figure landed, and I knew by the bat-like wings that it was Conor, that he must have gotten caught on the roof during the fire and turned into stone. Emma landed next to him, throwing a brief glance in his direction before running into the burning house.
Moments later, a scream filled the air, the sound full of agony.
Conor froze, his face turning toward the manor. Emma was stumbling out of it, dragging a figure behind her.
One look and the barrier I’d hidden behind during the rain of fire vanished. If I hadn’t already been on my knees, I would have fallen, my sobs reaching into the sky, meeting Emma’s agonized screams.
In her arms, she was holding Maria.
There was no stop to the tears, no stop to the racking pain that gripped me.
Emma knelt on the ground next to her deceased grandmother, her body rocking back and forth. Conor joined her, pulling her into his embrace, his lips moving next to her ears.
I was frozen in shock, memories assaulting me. Maria answering the door to a seventeen-year-old naphil and a demon, her gaze full of horror. Maria taking my hand and telling me everything was going to be okay. Maria standing next to me, her encouragement and quiet understanding a lifeline. Maria teaching me. Maria holding me.
“Alessandro?” Luther asked. He joined us, Monroe next to him. Other than a few minor burns, she looked okay.
Someone landed on the ground next to us, a tall broad man with dark hair. It had been a long time since I’d seen this man, but I knew him. He was one of the hybrids Conor had saved from the Acropolis. In his arms was Alessandro, unconscious but alive.
“I was near him when the fire hit,” the man said.
Conor nodded. “Thank you, Bruno.”
Bruno threw a sympathetic look in Emma’s direction before taking flight again. “I’m going to look for other survivors,” he called.
I barely noticed anything else. The only thing I saw was Maria, her immobile body and serene face, her rosary still hanging around her neck. She hadn’t been my grandmother, but she might as well have been. She’d been there for me during the most difficult time of my life.
She’d been my friend. In many ways, she’d been like a mother to me.
I couldn’t stop the tears.
Arms closed around me, enfolding me in warmth, but I didn’t open my eyes. I just couldn’t stop the tears.
“Please,” I sobbed. “Just make it stop.”
“I am,” the arms that held me said. “I have every intention of making it stop.”
Another voice joined ours, air beating down on us as the man behind it landed, his wings folding in behind him. “Marcas,” Lucas called. “You’ve been summoned.”
Chapter 24
Out of the ashes of war, there are always victors. Even more so, there are martyrs.
~Luther Craig, the Demon of Lust~
Marcas
Lucas’ words had barely passed over me when Dayton glanced up, her tear-stained cheeks and reddened gaze meeting my face.
“Summoned?” she asked.
Gently, I released her, my gaze full of reassurance. “I’m going to make everything right,” I said.
Luther stared at me. “Brother?” he asked. Standing, I started to move away, but Luther grabbed me, his fingers wrapping around my arm. One look at my haggard face, and the question he’d planned to ask was replaced with, “Love is supposed to be beautiful.”
My gaze met his, my shoulders lifting wearily. “It isn’t supposed to stay beautiful. Love that always glitters is deceptive. It has nowhere else to go.” I glanced down at Dayton. “The tarnished kind can be polished over and over again. And then when it shines, you’ve got a reason to be proud of it.”
“Marcas,” Lucas insisted. “We’ve got to go.”
Luther’s hold on me didn’t loosen. “What have you done, brother?” he asked. “What happened to you in Heaven? What did God ask for?”
I pulled away from him. “This is on me,” I said. Luther’s suspicious gaze followed me.
“What are you doing?” Dayton called.
By then, I’d started to walk away, and I didn’t turn back, her voice chasing me.
Lucas fell in beside me. “You remember what I said, right,” he asked. “You can always say no.”
My head shook. “No, I can’t.” I glanced at him. “Why did He send you?”
Lucas shrugged. “Maybe He knows you trust me.”
“I don’t,” I protested. “I don’t trust you.”
Lucas snorted. “I got it the first time.”
With a quick glance at me, his wings spread out behind him, all six of them—beautiful and magnificent—and he took flight. I rose behind him, the world falling away beneath us, the charred earth growing more and more distant.
We never made it further than the third level of Heaven.
“I’m supposed to leave you here,” Lucas said.
I barely acknowledged him. Instead, I sat on the turquoise grass and avoided looking at the spot where Dayton had been tortured, my chin falling to my chest. It was a long wait. It gave me plenty of time to think, my mind playing over my life.
I’d been raised by my mother, the she-demon Lilith, with only a few visits from my father, Cain. I’d had a twin brother, Damon, and he’d been my only playmate. I’d loved my twin, and for the first few hundred years, he’d been a fairly normal demon, no worse and no better than anyone else. His insanity set in later when, as we aged, the bloodlust consumed us. I’d had the will power to deny myself, but Damon never had. He’d needed blood the same way most people needed water, engorging himself until he’d vomit.
It was Damon’s lack of control that made our mother favor me, and Damon’s lack of control that turned me into her chess piece of power, her final move to greatness. I’d been her ambassador in Hell, doing and seeing things no man should ever have to see or do. My actions haunted me, and I’d withdrawn from the images by sinking into a world of pleasure and vice. I’d sunk myself into earthly pursuits, drowning myself in women and drink even though the women were unable to remember me the next day and the drink never made me drunk. That was the problem with demonic blood. With pleasure came forgetfulness in mortal women, and in drink came soberness.
My life became a blur of blood, fear, and need until I’d accidentally stumbled upon an angel sent to earth to perform a minor miracle on a child I’d been sent to kill.
Sophia, the angel, had stopped me.
“Why are you here, Demon?” she’d asked, her face full of innocent curiosity.
We’d been standing outside a house, an ancient hut, and I’d looked at her with darkened eyes. “I’m here to kill the baby,” I’d answered.
Sophia had laughed. “Oh, you can’t do that. I’m here to save it. God trumps demons.”
She’d been confident, arrogant, and beautiful, and I’d wanted her, her sing-song voice calling to me, soothing my wounded soul like nothing else had up until that point.
“Let me make love to you,” I’d demanded. I’d been as arrogant and confident as she had, and I’d been both fascinated and horrified by her golden glow, by her divine beauty.
She’d stared at me. “I like my place in Heaven, thank you, but you do fascinate me. Let’s meet again.”
We’d separated then, but that first meeting had been the beginning of a very long affair, one of innocent curiosity that had turned into love. Never lust. For me it had, but Sophia had always rejected me, eventually turning me away when Heaven discovered our transgression. She’d had to make a choice, and she made the right one.
Even so, the arrogant youth I’d been had been heartbroken and angry. I’d turned to the one place I’d always found my oblivion; on earth among humanity, spurning my mother to disappear into the desert. For years, I lived with the Egyptians, building pyramids and monuments. Eventually, I even received a tattoo representing their cobra-goddess.
In the end, the desert had saved me only to return me to Hell and to my mother.
Dayton Blainey had been ten-years-old the first time I ever laid eyes on her. She’d been standing next to her parents’ graves, and there’d been no tears. The dry eyes had startled me, and even though I’d been ordered to destroy her because of my brother’s obsession with her bloodline, I’d been unable to do it. Instead, I’d left. Occasionally, I’d go back and check on her every few years, but mostly I kept my distance. Until the night Damon planted her in a dark alleyway, and I’d been tricked into drinking her blood.
In the end, her blood and the journey that followed became my salvation.
“Marcas.”
His voice, God’s voice, broke through my reverie. I didn’t bother looking up. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had. I couldn’t look him in the face.
“Have you made your decision?” He asked.
Again, I kept my head down, my voice loud and clear when I answered, “Yes.”
Chapter 25
Power gambles are common in Heaven and Hell. They can last minutes, hours, days, months, or years. Most of the time, the actual battles are short; power burning bright, magic passing from one creature to another, screams, and then nothing. Just like that. Even Lucifer’s fall had been short. One moment, he was rising against God, the next he was smite from the clouds. But while the battles in Heaven and Hell don’t last long, the same can’t be said for what follows.
~Luther Craig, the Demon of Lust~
Dayton
Sophia’s fall from Heaven and Beez’s greed had left earth in shambles, some parts more damaged than others. Parts of Canada and the middle east had been untouched, for example, while parts of the United States and Europe had been entirely devastated. There was no way to hide the damage, no way to make people believe it hadn’t happened.
In the end, in countries where the power had not been effected, news stories flashed. Helicopters flew over the devastation. The logical explanation for it all was a meteorological or seismic abnormality, a shift in the earth or a problem with the weather that had thrown the world into a tailspin. It was hailed as the near-apocalypse and labeled one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit the earth since the time of the dinosaurs.
Some of us, the ones burdened with our knowledge and power knew better.
This was our world, after all. Pain, power, love, and loss. We were the great divide between mortals and the world beyond the veils, the worlds controlled by gods and monsters.
Those of us who knew had to rebuild, our hearts shattered.
If mine and Emma’s tears over Maria’s death had been tragic, it was nothing compared to Alessandro’s, to the heavy, heartbreaking sobs that had emanated from such a powerful, strong man. Maria had been the only parent Alessandro had, his father having died when he was a child. She’d not only raised him, she’d taught him things only a devoted mother could teach; kindness, love, and loyalty.
My heart hurt. It hurt even more that Marcas had vanished, disappearing into the sky in an ascent to Heaven none of us, except maybe Lucas understood. We hadn’t heard from either of them. There’d been only silence.
While we waited, we picked up the fallen pieces of our world. Conor had remained at S.O.S. headquarters to be with Emma and Alessandro as they grieved, his support valuable as they managed to put together a small funeral and bury Maria despite the damaged earth and the ravaged manor.
Days passed.
Luther, who I’d never known to stay on earth longer than he had to remained as well, his gaze on the sky. I couldn’t decide if it was love for his brother that kept him here or his insatiable curiosity. I think, though he would never admit it, that it was both.
The first sign that something was wrong came in the Great Fall. Precisely seven days after Marcas rose up to Heaven, the first angel fell.
Lucas appeared in the air above us, his stern face turned toward the sky, his arms folded across his chest. We tried speaking with him, but he said nothing.
“It’s the way of things,” Luther explained. “Lucas is here to catch the fallen, to bind them until they’re sane enough to function outside Heaven. Angels are unemotional creatures. When they turn on God, they’re flooded with temptation, needs, and emotions they’ve never felt before. It’s enough to drive them mad. Hence the binding until the worst has passed. Looks like God is getting rid of any angel who may have been tempted to be involved in an uprising against him with Sophia. I’ve got to give the guy some credit. He really knows how to run a kingdom.”
I stared. “Is that where Sophia is now? Bound?”
Luther shrugged. “Or dead. She did more than rise against God. She lay with Princes of Hell. She may be relegated to my realm in the end.”
The thought broke my heart. Everything seemed to break my heart these days, as if Marcas’ absence was making my soul weep. I knew, because of the bond, that nothing bad had happened to him, but the uneasy feeling in my gut kept growing.
For days, the angels fell. I counted no less than fifty. It wasn’t a tremendous number, but it was way bigger than I’d expected. It made me wonder how large the Fallen population really was.
Still, even after the last angel fell, Lucas didn’t speak to us, his face calm and unreadable.
Two days later, we found out why.
Two days later, the tribulation began.
Two days later, two angels flew down from Heaven, Marcas hanging between them. He was shirtless and barefoot, the only thing covering him a pair of black sweatpants. His head was down.
When they landed, Lucas materialized before them.
The morning they fell with him was a Friday. It was early, the sun having risen only an hour before. Dew still covered the charred landscape, the earth drinking in every spare bit of water.
Luther saw them first, his feet thundering through the manor’s wreckage. Even though it was impossible to sleep in the house, the S.O.S. survivors had taken to camping on the grounds, roughing it in an attempt to set everything to rights.
I was the second person to see them. Unlike Luther, I was already outside, sitting just inside a tent with Conor and Monroe. We rose, moving to the lawn beyond, our gazes on the celestial visitors.
I stared at Marcas, my heart clenching.
I started to speak, but Lucas looked at me a
nd shook his head. Gazing out over the yard, the Fallen angel announced, “In the name of the Lord, we bring before you the firstborn son of Cain. Summoned by the Father, Marcas Craig, has agreed to a tribulation in order to redeem the children born of Cain and mortal women.” Lucas glanced at Luther. “Call the sons and daughters of Cain, Demon. They’re going to need to see this.”
The Fallen angel’s shoulders remained rigid despite the despair in his gaze as he searched the yard for Alessandro. “Leader of the S.O.S.,” Lucas called. “Bring forth the Seal of Solomon.”
My heart froze, a gasp escaping me.
“No!” I cried. I didn’t care if I was supposed to speak or not. “Marcas!”
Two more angels dropped from the sky, their placid eyes finding my face.
Lucas frowned. “Dayton, you can’t be bound to him for this. He’s agreed to be crucified. It’s not an unusual avenue of redemption, especially for first born sons with godly blood in them. What part of his blood is divine will break the curse on Cain’s children.”
Chapter 26
Crucifixion is one of the oldest methods for punishing sinners. Blood is a holy thing in Heaven and Hell. Our blood is what separates us. Our blood is what makes us angels or demons. Because of his bond with a naphil, Marcas carries the blood of three different races in his veins. Three is a holy number. Without Dayton, he only carries two. Without Dayton, he dies.
~Luther Craig, the Demon of Lust~
Marcas
The angels who held me were kind, their grip loose, and I stood between them in compliance. My head was down because I knew if I looked up, if I saw Dayton’s face I’d doubt myself.
There are certain things you learn about yourself when you’ve lived as long as I have. For one, I’d learned that many people saw the word revelation as the end times. In some ways, it was. But most words have dual meanings, most things have dual representations. For me, revelation was a great awakening. It was taking a deep breath and really looking at yourself, at your life, and at your destiny.